The Incredibly Shrinking Rabbinate

Posted on August 9, 2013 | 17 comments

(The following appears as an Op-Ed in the Jewish Press, August 9, 2013)

With the constant drumbeat of articles about female rabbis appearing in the media almost weekly – essentially the same articles making the same points to the same eager audience, all to make the phenomenon of female rabbis seem commonplace – it is important to take a step back and examine how, indeed, we arrived at this destination. How is it possible that the ordination of women, something that until quite recently was perceived as incompatible with Jewish tradition, should suddenly be construed as acceptable to all, and even to the nominally Orthodox but better described as neo-Conservative Jews?
The New Synagogue of Berlin on Oranienburgerstrasse, which today functions exclusively as a museum of German Jewish history, displays the “ordination” certificate of Regina Jonas, purportedly the first woman to receive the title rabbi. She was ordained in 1935 after writing a thesis for the Reform seminary in Berlin on the permissibility of women’s ordination. Naturally, she concluded that women can be ordained. Nonetheless, most of her contemporary Reform rabbis – including Rabbi Leo Baeck, the dean of the German Reform Rabbinate – discounted her thesis and opposed her ordination as violative of Jewish law. Her certificate was signed by Rabbi Max Dienemann and she served for several years as an Assistantrabbi at the Oranienburgerstrasse temple; even they could not countenance a woman as the full-time rabbi. Sadly, Rabbi Jonas was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944.
For decades, she had no successors, and all denominations of Judaism, even those who did not otherwise revere or adhere to Jewish law, assumed that women were not eligible to be rabbis. What changed?
What changed were two distinct yet interrelated phenomena that pervaded the American cultural and civic scene in the 1960’s: feminism and anti-authoritarianism. Feminism was an aggressive response to the dominance of what was deemed the “patriarchy” of life, the sense that men ruled, controlled the levers of power, wealth and influence, and thereby suppressed women. Certainly, feminism had some successes, although none that was unequivocal. Women entered the work force in larger numbers, today women outnumber men in colleges and most graduate programs, and women have become much more self-sufficient economically.
Feminism also allowed women greater self-expression, a decidedly mixed blessing for all. For example, feminism empowered women to be as promiscuous and as lustful as men, as Pyrrhic a victory as has been seen since King Pyrrhus himself ravaged his own armies in 280 BCE. Marriage has suffered grievously; the latest statistics show that today barely half of America’s adults are married (only 42% in New York City), the lowest rate since 1961. Children, too, have been raised with a “new normal” in which homes are less stable and parental influence less forthcoming. Certainly, there are many exceptions but the culture has changed dramatically. The assault on the patriarchy has succeeded so magnificently – although never enough to please the diehards – that, if anything, real men are said to be in short supply and the shirking of traditional male responsibilities (fidelity to wife, parenting children, supporting families, etc.) is a social epidemic.
By the same token, the turbulence of the 1960’s – especially the Vietnam War, the urban riots and the assassinations of respected figures – produced a distrust of government and a pervasive antagonism toward authority. Tradition – both in terms of religion and social conventions – became suspect and required a renewed validation after an independent review of its worth and merits. Politicians were largely reviled, and religious leaders were soon after held in contempt by much of “enlightened”society, especially the media. The entertainment industry typically portrays clergymen as venal, hypocritical, and corrupt, and those are the good ones. Young people took pride in not listening to their elders, and taking refuge (or escaping) into drugs and alcohol. Oppositional Defiant Disorder entered the psychological lexicon a decade later. “The wisdom of the scholars was reviled, fearers of sin scorned, [objective] truth will disappear, children will embarrass their elders, [and] the old will stand before the young…” (Masechet Sota 49b). This was one legacy of the 1960’s, and these two forces soon coalesced.
The male rabbinate contained “tartei l’rei’uta” – the worst of both worlds. It was limited to men and the loathed symbol of religious (and therefore objective) authority. As such, the male rabbinate was a feminist/anti-authoritarian nightmare, and had to be undermined.
In 1972, Sally Priesand was ordained the first female Reform rabbi in the United States.
Yet, neither social movement should have had any resonance among religious Jews. Despite the persistent claims of Jewish feminists, Judaism has never perceived itself as a “patriarchy.” We have patriarchs and matriarchs, equally venerated. Jewish identity is transmitted through the mother, not the father. Jewish women frequently worked outside the home, were often the bread-winners, and never suffered the legal disabilities that in other societies limited a woman’s capacity to own property or accumulate wealth. And the very essence of Judaism is the surrender to God’s authority, by assuming the yoke of Torah obligations as conveyed to us through the written and oral law. Traditional Jews revere authority even as modern men (and women) revile it.
To be sure, Jewish law assigns different modes of worship to men and women, as it does to Kohanim, Leviim,and Yisraelim. It even distinguishes between men and women when it comes to the observance of certain mitzvot, although, by far, just a small minority ofmitzvot. The toxic brew of feminism and anti-authoritarianism has caused some women to chafe under these designated roles. This discontent is engendered by the egalitarian obsession of feminism – that men and women are equal, therefore identical, and any distinctions inherently invalid, if not also repugnant – and by the rejection of any objective authority, of the “no one can tell me what I can or can’t do” variety. Both are misplaced, to say the least, as any organization or system can only survive if defined roles are allocated and those roles are carried out faithfully by participants. Obviously, the military could not function if every soldier did as he wished on the battlefield. It is the cohesion of disparate elements that allows the machinery of organization to thrive.
The Reform ordination of Sally Priesand was understandable in the sense that the movement never claimed to adhere to Jewish law and, almost by definition, sought to reform it until it conformed to“modern” values. By the late 1960’s, the twin rebellions of feminism and anti-authoritarianism had captured the liberal imagination. It is hard to attribute the reason for the almost four decade hiatus between the ordinations of Rabbis Jonas and Priesand to anything but sexism. Certainly the Torah was no obstacle. It remained absolutely clear to the Torah world, and to the Conservative movement that claimed a nominal fidelity to Jewish law, that ordination of women was impossible.
In 1985, the Conservative movement ordained Amy Eilberg as their first female rabbi. Conveniently, JTS waited for its primary scholar, Rabbi Saul Lieberman, to die (1983), as he had adamantly opposed women’s ordination and considered it a nullity. Eilberg’s ordination culminated a series of proclamations – all influenced by the twin cultural forces rampant in American life – that had rejected Jewish law and equalized the role of men and women in worship. Thus, beginning in the 1970’s and unfolding in short order, women were first counted in a Minyan, first allowed to receive aliyot, first allowed to lead the tefilot and finally allowed to function as rabbis. (More recently, in 2004, women were also allowed to serve as legal witnesses, completing the break with Jewish tradition.)
In the ensuing decades since women have begun to serve in the non-Orthodox rabbinate, male attendance at services has declined precipitously and the non-Orthodox rabbinical seminaries have become majority female. But at least those presumably faithful to Torah, its values and traditions, stood firm against this onslaught. That changed as well in the first decade in the 21stcentury with the ordination of the first woman, followed most recently by three other women. Such was possible not only because of the utter conquest of the left-wing of Orthodoxy (by now, neo-Conservatism) by its masters, feminism and anti-authoritarianism, but also by the re-definition of the rabbinate. Without shrinking the rabbinate and the role of the Rabbi – without accentuating certain functions of the rabbinate and minimizing others – such a re-definition would be impossible, or, at the very least, it would not be possible and still claim with a straight face to be faithful to Torah.
Thus, in the traditional American rabbinate, the rabbi looms large in the prayer service – sitting in front, even leading on occasion, and in many communities, serving as the reader of the Torah. Those roles are off limits to religious women. Or, all male Jews are obligated in Torah study, the daily recitation of Sh’ma, the time-bound mitzvot like talit and tefillin, public prayer, and other commandments. The idea of a functioning rabbi exempt from Torah study, public prayer or the wearing of tefillin is peculiar, and rightfully so. The rabbi is often perceived as a role model for others in the fulfillment of Jewish law, notwithstanding that all Jews are obligated in the commandments that apply to them. Traditionally, the rabbi serves as a judge in halachic matters, or as a witness to various halachic acts.
What would we call a rabbi who cannot read the Torah, daven for the amud, is exempt by Jewish law from a variety of common ritual practices (and in some cases, actually proscribed from fulfilling them), serve as a judge or a witness – and is forbidden by Jewish law, according to prevailing opinion, from serving in positions of authority? Not much of a rabbi.
It is no coincidence that the concept of serarahis rejected by the neo-Conservatives as a definitive aspect of the rabbinate and therefore as grounds for rejection of a female rabbinate according to Rambam and others. The abhorrence of serarah is at the very root of the current rebellion –both in terms of the feminist hatred of the patriarchy and the anti-authoritarian’s contempt for authority.
That is why certain aspects of the rabbinate are emphasized to make it seem as if female rabbis are a natural fit. Do rabbis teach Torah? So do women. Do rabbis counsel the afflicted? Certainly, and of course there are more female therapists today than male therapists. Can women speak at a shalom zachar? Why not – they’re the ones having the babies anyway! So, if that is all there is to the rabbinate, why was there ever any reasonable objection to it?
From that perspective, the yoetzet movement also, wittingly or unwittingly, serves the same function of chipping away at the fundamentals of the rabbinate. Certainly, it is arguable whether women can decide questions of Jewish law; some authorities permit it, while others (see Shaarei Teshuva in Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 461:17) prohibit it. But the women who will today answer questions of taharat mishpacha, with debatable authority, can tomorrow answer questions of Shabbat, Kashrut, Eruvin and civil law. That day – if it ever comes – will see the end of the traditional rabbinate. Fortunately, it will never come, because by that time those who have embraced this departure from tradition will have long left the mainstream Orthodox community. But those are the lines that need to be drawn today, by all Jews who care about the Mesorah and the continuity of Jewish life.
The growth of Torah study for women in the last century has been a boon to Jewish life, in line with the Chafetz Chaim’s recognition that such was needed to survive spiritually in the modern world. In an extreme minority of cases, such Torah knowledge has encouraged crashing through the barriers of halacha, and that is most lamentable. Torah study should lead to greater humility and surrender to G-d’s will, and not to the conflating of G-d’s will with whatever secular value is ascendant in any given era.
The only way to accommodate women rabbis is to modify the rabbinate itself, shrinking it by excluding from normative rabbinic practice certain obvious and important elements of the field. The job description itself has to be constricted, much like the physical qualifications for firefighters had to be reduced in order to accommodate female firefighters. Rabbis who cannot normatively perform significant aspects of the profession (officiate at weddings, for example) are “rabbis” of a diminished stature, graded, as it were, on a curve, whose very limitations underscore their ineligibility.
Employing different titles and calling that “ordination” does not change anything. Taking a rabbinical function and re-assigning it to a layman does not make that layman a rabbi. The rabbinate is more than just the sum total of different tasks. It represents the continuity of spiritual leadership that connects Jews to Sinai of the past and to Moshiach of the future. In fact, the diminution of the rabbinate to a few limited functions implicit in its feminization provokes the intriguing question: what can this newfangled woman rabbi do that a non-Jew occupying the same position could not also do?
The diminished rabbinate highlights the rabbi’s pastoral role and minimizes the study of Torah and Jewish law, as if social work is the rabbi’s main task rather than an ancillary function of the rabbinate. It fosters a sense of the Torah as a “feel-good” document whose laws are not really binding on modern man because they can be adjusted to conform to core values such as feminism, egalitarianism and self-expression.
From that perspective, it is certainly understandable why Sally Priesand was an honored guest at the ordination ceremony that occurred last month. Neither halachic methodology nor mesorah figure significantly in the calculations of the Neo-Cons. Notwithstanding the professed good intentions of this movement, the conquest by the feminist and anti-authoritarian rebels of the 1960’s will continue until the appropriate boundaries are drawn, and surrender to Torah again becomes the prerequisite of divine service.

17 Comments

Battered Nation Syndrome

Posted on August 1, 2013 | 11 comments

As a young attorney a few decades ago, I was trying a case of child neglect in the Family Court. The mother testified (trying to excuse her neglect) that she had been beaten regularly by her husband – weekly or monthly – for six or seven years. “Did you ever call the police?” I asked. “No.” “Well,” I said trying to impeach her credibility, “why would stay for years with a man who was beating you?”
The wrath of the court fell on me. I was called to the bench, where the judge asked me: “Counselor, haven’t you ever heard of the ‘battered wife syndrome’?”
Indeed, I hadn’t, but quickly gained an education. There are women, I was told, who routinely live with abusive husbands. They stay because they can’t afford to leave, because they always think the situation will improve and the last beating is the last beating (until the next one, and that becomes the “last” one), because there can be long periods of domestic tranquility punctuated by explosions, or because they have low self-esteem and on some level “feel” that they deserve the beatings by provoking their malevolent husbands or by not being sufficiently good wives.
Obviously, it is irrational, and almost inexplicable to an outsider with a healthy psyche and a normal, healthy way of looking at the world.
Welcome to Israel, afflicted with the “battered-country syndrome.” There is really no rational explanation why a nation would enter into negotiations with an enemy sworn to its destruction, when any outcome of those negotiations will redound to its detriment, and almost immediately. Furthermore, the very notion that Israel should have to bribe its evil interlocutors to come to the negotiation table by releasing another 104 murderers of Jews is beyond bizarre, beyond explanation, and only attributable to a virulent strain of a mental illness that is unprecedented and, as yet, untreatable. It is painfully obvious that no other country on earth ever has or ever will agree to liberate the murderers of its own citizens simply to purchase the right to have an enemy negotiate them into further concessions and weakness.
It is mindboggling. How would the US respond if Iran insisted, as the price of negotiations on its almost-finished nuclear program, that the US release Dzokar, the Boston Marathon bomber? The depraved absurdity speaks for itself. And Israel is releasing 100 Dzokars.
Note as well that the Obama administration, in pressuring Israel to free terrorists, refused to release Jonathan Pollard imprisoned now for almost 29 years. They would not consider it, despite the fact that Pollard has no blood on his hands, unlike the Arab murderers being released some of whom were involved in absolutely brutal slayings of innocent civilians. Only Israel, suffering from the battered-country syndrome. (And what does it say about the Arab society that demands freedom for these killers and celebrates them as heroes? But that is a different syndrome altogether.)
Israel’s response can only be the result of a mental illness because neither the negotiations nor the release make any sense – in timing or in execution. The Middle East is aflame – a tinderbox of violence and hatred. Three times as many Syrians have been killed by each other in the last two years than “Palestinians” have been killed by Israelis in 65 years, and few of those Palestinians were innocent of any wrongdoing. Egypt is in the midst of a civil war. Northern Africa is Islamasizing. Jordan fears for its future, as the unrest to its north and the radicalization of Islam that surrounds it threatens the stability of its monarchy. Gasoline prices in the United States have doubled – yes, doubled – since Obama took office.
And John Kerry can find nothing better to do than browbeat Israel into negotiations with its enemy, and at the price of freeing murderers as well? Kerry has made six trips to the region in his attempts to jumpstart these talks, which do not lead to a good place for Israel. There are only two possibilities ahead: either Israel makes more territorial concessions that further weaken it, strengthen the Arabs, and demoralize its Jewish population, or Israel makes no concessions and is blamed for the lack of peace in the Middle East and beyond. How is it possible that its government can be so obtuse and behave in such a shameless way?
Surely, PM Netanyahu knows the disadvantages of pandering to terrorists; he even wrote a book on it. And, of course, he has long insisted, quite passionately and eloquently, as is his wont, that “there will be no pre-conditions for negotiations!” That robust declaration, apparently, holds true – until it doesn’t. Does he believe that peace will come as a result of these talks? Does he believe that the US will give Israel a green light to attack Iran, or even attack Iran themselves? Does he believe that Israel cannot any longer bear the absence of negotiations? Does he believe that the same three people who failed in their last round of negotiations five years ago will now suddenly succeed, and the Arabs will morph into the Swiss? Does he believe that the European Union will renounce their hateful boycott of Israel? (Why not make that an Israeli pre-condition for negotiations??)
None of the above is credible in the least, and the ongoing weakness is only attributable to the battered-country syndrome. Just like the battered-wife blames herself for the violence, thinks she can improve the situation by making unilateral changes, lacks self-esteem, and therefore endures the violence, injury, emotional and verbal abuse and degradation that is her fate – so too Israel.
Only a country that lacks self-esteem willingly surrenders its land to its enemies; that diminished self-worth is only possible among those who deny the divine promise of the land of Israel to the Jewish people. Only a battered-country blames itself for Arab unhappiness and discontent, and thinks it can solve all its neighbors’ problems. Only a battered-country will tolerate rockets on its citizens’ heads, endure terror for years without responding, and then regret and apologize for its forceful response when it does happen. (Just like the battered wife will often regret defending herself against her abusive husband.)
Just like battered women have been known to seek out cosmetic surgery in order to please their husbands (new face, new look, new start), so too, only a battered country will make surgically excise parts of its homeland in order to please, or even just temporarily mollify, its abusers. And just like the battered wife always feels that relief is just around the corner, so too the battered country feels that peace is attainable, juuuuuuuuuuuust around the corner. It’s entirely visible, like any mirage.
The battered wife accepts repetitive cycles of abuse and tranquility, but always lives in fear of the abuse and thinks she can somehow avert it by changing something, anything. But the same story repeats itself again and again – like here, the same faces emerge once again: Livni, Molcho, Erakat, Indyk. Expect Dennis Ross to make a cameo, and Shimon Peres to take a bow at some point. And where is Hanan Ashrawi?
The battering husband never makes concessions, because he thinks he does nothing wrong. Fault lies only with the misbehaving, unsatisfying, failed wife. So, only Israel, the battered country, must make concessions. The only Arab concession –having to sit in a room for a short time with the accursed Jews – is bought at the price of freeing murderers of Jewish men, women and children. The battered country makes concessions in order to forestall terror and violence, because it thinks that it is responsible for the distress of the “husband,” and because it does not really believe it is entitled to a peaceful, tranquil existence, a normal life, as other countries have. It does not really believe it deserves such a life, and so it does everything it can to undermine it, and at every opportunity.
And then the terror resumes, and the heartbreak of expulsions and the denial of rights to its citizens recur. Just like the battered wife often takes out her frustrations on her children (as in the case above), so too the battered country abuses its citizens, expels them from their homes, expects to stomach terror, massacres, bombings and shootings, and exults in its victimization. After all, it deserves it.
The battered country, like the battered wife, thinks it cannot live without the “husband.” But the healthy know that the dependency is unhealthy and reversible. Thus, every country pressured by the Obama administration thumbs its nose at it; only the battered country is incapable of standing up for its interests and saying a polite “no.”
The greater irony here – and what underscores the illness –is the superfluity of it all. Israel is today living in relative peace and prosperity, much more than any other nation in the region and more than in most of the world. The “Palestinians” are a spent force, characterized by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal just three weeks ago as a “boring” people, whose affairs do not really interest the world or have any impact on global affairs. Watching the Israeli news the last few days, it was surprising that these negotiations barely rated mention in the first half-hour. The only outcry – from the pockets of normalcy that remain – was over the impending release of the Arab murderers. The cause of the Palestinians is not even in the top five interests of the Arab world today; it is probably not in the top fifty of important world concerns.
So why do it?
The Oslo process also began when the Arabs were in political decline. Their civil war had petered out, with Israeli casualties in the years before Oslo numbering annually in the twenties. (After Oslo, there was an awful spike in terror and casualties.) Now again, terror is at an all-time low, notwithstanding the recent increase in shootings, stabbings, and, in the last few days again, rockets. Why should Israel indulge Kerry, revive the dormant Arab cause, punish its own citizens, and weaken itself in the process? Why not just do as the battered wife should do – leave her abusive husband until he gets help, or just leave him altogether – as in “peace is not possible in this generation with these Arab leaders; let us focus instead on co-existence”?
It is inexplicable, as inexplicable as the battered country syndrome.

11 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel

The Death of Shame

Posted on July 26, 2013 | 14 comments

Watching the implosion of Anthony Weiner for the second time stimulates a few thoughts. His attempted run for Mayor of NYC, bound to be aborted in the near future either by himself or by intelligent voters, is painful to watch. His confessions seem strangely detached, read in a bland tone without obvious expression as if he is on emotional auto-pilot. His wife is similarly pained, although she cannot be shocked except by the extent of the dysfunction of the man she married and assumed was normal.
There was a time when non-Jewish women desired to marry Jewish men, assuming that they would be less likely to stray, deviate, drink to excess, beat or exhibit other signs of aberrant, anti-social behavior. Jewish men without any semblance of loyalty to the Jewish people or understanding of their heritage willingly complied and they too sought out non-Jewish women for marriage. The one bright note in the tragic sagas of Weiner and the similarly intermarried, again running-for-office reprobate Elliot Spitzer is that perhaps non-Jews will re-consider marrying Jews, thereby driving down the intermarriage rate. Jewish men do not seem as desirable as they once were; in fact, these two are embarrassments irrespective of their ethnic origin.
What would possess these two individuals to return to the public eye, run for office, and subject their families and themselves to increased scrutiny knowing that they both have…issues? Certainly both feel a compulsion for public service, presuming that they can do what others cannot do. They must enjoy the publicity, the acclaim and even the occasional criticism – all of which make them feel important. But they have to be particularly obtuse not to realize that they are laughing stocks, notwithstanding that both stood (stand) reasonable chances of getting elected to their respective posts. Part of their success is media-driven: both make great fodder for the media beast because their stories are so salacious. Part of their success is attributable to their faith in Americans as a forgiving, even forgetful, people. And part of it traces to something else that is now endemic to American life: the death of shame.
Shame was murdered when morality was reduced to a lifestyle preference that is completely subjective. There was a time when a married, two parent (male and female) family with children was not only the norm of American life but socially desirable. Today, people boast about families existing in all forms, with different configurations and lifestyles on which any moral judgment redounds to the detriment of the putative judge. The other day I walked past two young women talking in a public place, and overheard one saying “she lives with her boyfriend in a house on the other side of…” and kept walking.
I never heard the end of the sentence, but what struck me was that, not long ago and in my own lifetime, no one would talk that way in a public place, and couples living together before marriage would be discussed in hushed, embarrassed tones if it would be discussed at all. It is still that way, thank God, in the world in which I live, but modern culture, its value system and celebration of all that is different and deviant, can be oppressive at times, and perhaps always. Decadence is so normative it is no longer perceived as decadence.
Misfits like Weiner and Spitzer benefit from that non-judgmentalism, always able to trot out spokesmen, celebrities or acolytes to declare that one’s private life is private, should not intrude on one’s public service, and should always remain a private matter between husbands, wives and their paramours. They can count on people saying “let one who is without sin cast the first stone,” and gleefully point to other similarly-situated sinners who have resumed public roles. One would think that, at least for the sake of their wives and children, they would be better advised to slink off to some obscure job with a low profile and focus on what is truly important in life – family, children, values, reputation, and even – if they chose wisely – divine service. Have some shame, at long last!
There is an ongoing debate on whether or not the wives of these degenerates deserve sympathy. On the one hand, they are both strong, intelligent and successful women who are making their choices with the eyes open even if their heads are not held high. On the other hand, they are doing what they can, under extremely trying circumstances, to keep their families together, and that is most admirable. On the third hand, they both benefit from the prestige that attaches to the prominent politician, and may be willing – as the Kennedy wives were – to tolerate a certain amount of indiscretion in order to retain that prominence. Weiner’s wife, long-time aide to Hillary Clinton, certainly has her boss as a role model. I tend to be more sympathetic than not, especially because they will always go through life with the stigma of “wife of so-and-so who…” and that is not a particularly desirable notation on a resume. And surely they know – as Weiner’s wife seem to know now – that a happy ending will be an unlikely and unexpected coda to their marriages.
What has changed? Society used to pay lip service to the morality of the Bible, so that even people who did wrong at least knew that what they were doing was wrong, as in immoral. Now, the only offense is the personal wrong done to the spouse, which is why her support is crucial to the miscreant’s rehabilitation. But as a society we have lost much – innocence, decency, standards and responsibility. Every lowlife can retreat behind the wall of “personal morality,” and then, as has become customary, wrap himself in the warm blanket of “therapy” which transforms the scoundrel into the victim or patient. If only it were sincere.
We were a better society when the private was kept private, when character was a person’s most cherished asset, when a good name was worth more than money, when a person could watch the news with his children without cringing, when dignity and self-pride actually meant something, when moral standards were objective and widely embraced if not always heeded. Those were the days before the television confessionals of misfits became a daily staple, when politicians and public figures would actually balk at answering questions they deemed “too personal,” and decency, loyalty and responsibility were nobler values than personal expression, freedom of choice, and individual happiness. Those were the days; today, even hypocrisy would be a blessing because it presupposes some objective standard of good behavior.
The Talmud (Masechet Sanhedrin 55a) states that after a conviction for the crime of bestiality (still frowned in our ultra-sophisticated, tolerant society – the last remaining barrier!) both the perpetrator and the animal are executed. But why should the animal be executed, the Talmud asks, it is an innocent beast? The answer is that we do not want that animal to “walk in the marketplace and have people say, ‘so-and-so was executed because of what he did to that animal.’”
There is such a concept of moral pollution, even more harmful than the toxic fumes emitted by Chinese factories. It is deleterious to our spiritual aspirations to have constant reminders thrust into our faces of debauchery and depravity. It is even worse when they are Jews who are intermarried, such sorry representatives of the Jewish people in the general world.
The World Street Journal several weeks ago featured the post-scandal life of John Profumo, who threw himself after his personal downfall into charity and good works for the rest of his life. One longs for that sort of dignity.
Is repentance is possible? Of course – after contrition, being again tested and not failing, and after acknowledging the bad behavior and not just regretting getting caught in the bad behavior. That takes years, not months. That takes humility, not the exhibitionism that is almost a prerequisite to political life.
It would also take the reawakening of shame, whose return would be most welcome to our troubled world.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Fatal Distraction

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 9 comments

The deck was stacked against Trayvon Martin from the very beginning.
As is often the case when trials are litigated in the media, the obvious is overlooked. The prosecution always bears the burden of proving a defendant’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” That is not just a platitude but a legal standard. It is not sufficient to prove a preponderance of guilt; that is the standard in civil matters – a “preponderance” of evidence pointing to liability, usually meaning more than 50% of the evidence. In criminal matters, a reasonable doubt is not a percentage but a sensibility – a doubt for which one can give a reason. That is why Zimmerman was not found “innocent” by the jury but “not guilty.” That is the legal standard. He need not have proved his innocence. The prosecution has to prove his guilt.
Is there any thinking person who can honestly state that what occurred that night in Sanford, Florida is so clear that there is no reasonable doubt as to George Zimmerman’s guilt? Of course not. Only the race hucksters, political opportunists and other charlatans looking to profit off this tragedy would ever aver such a conclusion and even then, not seriously.
And it is a tragedy. For sure, the sympathies of the masses were manipulated by the frequent publication of the picture of a 12-year old Trayvon – and not the muscular, tattooed, 6’2” tall 17-year old he was at his death. Nor was there any reference to several scrapes with the law that he had in the year before his death, some manifesting an aggressive tendency that did not accrue to his advantage on the night of his death.
But the tragedy was, sadly, not unlike other tragedies that occur in life for which the law has no remedy. Every time a jury finds a defendant not guilty there is a disappointed complainant who thinks the system is corrupt and too malleable. The judicial system prefers to err on the side of exonerating the guilty than convicting the innocent. From that perspective, the verdict was fairly obvious, even though I thought that the jury would be hung (i.e., incapable of deciding) at least for a lot longer than they were, if only because of the public pressure to convict that the jurors invariably felt. But they followed the law, which is not always synchronized with the emotions and certainly not with the mob sentiment of the race-baiters.
Tragedies occur on the roads and in the hospitals and at home. Often there is no criminal guilt and even no civil liability. Not every mishap or misfortune lends itself to judicial redress or punishment. It is a part of life that can lead to despair, but it can also lead to daily gratitude for what we construe as small things until their absence causes them to loom very large – children, health, marriage, work, shelter, etc. Such is life.
The elephant in the room that cannot be discussed in polite company is the obvious answer to the prevailing question: why did Zimmerman suspect that Martin was up to no good? The answer is that of course Zimmerman was “racially profiling,” a cliché that has attracted a dastardly reputation notwithstanding that all thinking people do the same on a consistent basis. Even Jesse Jackson, adding these days to his resumé of dishonor, said years ago that if heard the footsteps of teenagers behind him on an urban street at night, he would be relieved to turn around and see that they were white teens. Simply put, young black men commit a wildly disproportionate number of crimes in America, and especially in America’s cities. Their rate of incarceration far exceeds their percentage of the population. There are many more black men in America’s prisons than their percentage in the population (probably 6-7%) should warrant. It is not because they are specifically targeted but because they are the ones disproportionately committing the crimes.
The saddest aspect of that is that most of their victims – overwhelmingly – are other blacks, in terms of homicides and other street crimes. Blacks growing in the inner city struggle to remain alive, to stay in schools and to keep their homes intact. The number of young innocent blacks killed in Chicago alone is staggering and a national disgrace.
Such is not the result of poverty of wealth but poverty of values. With more than 2/3 of black children being born out of wedlock, most are raised without strong, stable paternal role models. In certain circles, that abandonment of personal responsibility is still blamed on the legacy of slavery despite its abolition 150 years ago. Despite the best efforts of many black mothers, education is often frowned upon, and the easy money that many inner city youth see in the flaunted wealth of the criminal warlords of their neighborhoods – until they are caught, and if they are caught – remains a tantalizing allure.
They are not helped by the grievance industry nurtured by the hucksters. And it is a lucrative industry that plays on liberal white guilt and is therefore self-sustaining. Nothing can ever happen that will end it. Even the election of a black American president and the presence of a black Attorney General have little impact on the hustlers. According to them, America is irredeemably racist, always was and always will be, and whitey should just keep on paying, and especially paying them. To be called a racist today in American is so hackneyed as to draw yawns, not rebukes.
The double standard is blatant but familiar. Blacks discriminated against in apartheid South Africa had far better lives and were treated far better than today’s black citizens of Zimbabwe. But just like black-on-black crime in America is essentially ignored, so too black governmental dysfunction and brutality in Africa is also ignored. Wherever whites are not the perpetrators of wrongdoing against blacks, the suffering of blacks is of no interest to the hustlers or their acolytes in the media.
That fatal distraction is the real cause of Trayvon Martin’s death. In the best of circumstances, excluding even the issue of self-defense (if, indeed, George Zimmerman was attacked and his head was being pounded into the pavement, what was he supposed to do at that point but defend himself?), Zimmerman was careless in the use of his firearm like countless others negligently drive their cars or wield their axes while chopping wood. Death by accident is always distressing and leaves a bitter taste, a sense of loss than can never be filled. Accidents do happen, and they are terrible.
The real issue is what can be done to reverse the perception that many young black men pose a threat to civil society, and routinely induce fear in passersby. Certainly, that is unfair to the young black men who are decent and hard-working, who long for a life of normalcy away from the maelstrom that is stirred up by the black activists, many of whom reside in tony white neighborhoods themselves. But that is the challenge for the black community – and for its leadership that has already failed them for decades and shows no signs of reversing course. The attempt to impute racial animus to Zimmerman – even to deny and discount that he is Hispanic – has been as unseemly as it has always been typical.
The real victory for the black community does not lie in further persecution of George Zimmerman but in coming to grips with its real problems, of which the Zimmerman episode is only the latest manifestation.

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